When I was a late teen until I was an early twenty-something I dated this guy who was the most pretentious, ridiculous person I have ever met. For seven years I had a relationship with this guy and I almost married him. I had accepted a ring and plans were being made and everything!

Then one day I left the ring on the table with my keys and left.

It’s an embarrassing time of my life and I don’t like to remember it. He probably doesn’t like to remember it either.

He was a mechanic who wanted to be a doctor or an actor (he couldn’t make up his mind). He drank wine while bitching about the ‘low-brow’ humour that occurred on the shop floor. He was so full of himself watching Frasier and House like he wanted to be those guys it made me doubt my own intelligence.

Even now; I used to think I knew everything about writing but I don’t. Boss and BSP are far more educated than I in that realm. It made me feel like the one thing I had going for me was gone. I know that’s not the case, but it’s hard not to think that way sometimes.

And that reminds me of Brexton and Aldric.

Brexton is a showy, loud, confident guy. He’s probably not the sharpest tool in the shed as he leaves all the strategies and planning to Aldric. He discounts his own intelligence and is comfortable with the fact that there are those who know more than he does. He is happiest in battle, slicing his katana through the air and through bodies. That is his niche and it is where he feels his best. It’s part of the reason his relationship with Dessa broke down. Brexton wasn’t ready to discover who he could be without his sword.

Aldric is not confident. He has confidence in his battle skills, but that’s it. He is the smarter of the two in terms of planning and strategies. He also has more street-smarts than Brexton. But because Brexton shines like such a star, it makes Aldric self-concious. He feels that perhaps he’s too low to keep up with Brexton. It’s like Brexton is the cool popular kid that everyone loves and Aldric is the smart, quiet nerdy guy with no friends. In reality, they are the best of friends because they have traits that compliment each other. Aldric and Brexton have always been together so there’s that fear that they are only together out of habit.

The funny thing is, they both feel that way. Brexton feels like Aldric could do way better than him and that he is only with him because of familiarity and a sense of responsibility. Aldric feels the same way about Brexton. They don’t talk about it, but there’s that awkward concern under the surface.

I love writing scenes when this comes up. They’re both so ignorant with their emotions and that’s because they were never shown how to express them. Maybe that will change by the end of the story. I can’t tell you now though 😉

I channel a lot of my personal experiences in my writing. Of course I do! I don’t know a writer who doesn’t. This is what I know best because I lived it. I am living it. You could probably learn more about me by reading my book/musings than you could reading a blog post.

It’s enjoyable to write about Brexton and Aldric. I can’t wait to write more! The office is getting painted this weekend and that makes me so happy! Soon, everyone. Soon I’ll be able to lock myself in there for hours on the weekend and just let my fingers fly over the keyboard.

My husband got his new laptop so I’ll be getting his old one. That will make it much easier to type as well.

Phew! Between work, the kids, the house and freelancing, I’m starting to get a bit tired.

Things are going well for the moment. I’ve found relatively steady freelancing work (that’s not a typo) which is helping out. So far brings me in close to $100 a week. That’ll be fun come tax-time, but it’s not so bad. Hopefully I know how to claim it properly.

Haven’t done much work on TAK in a while. Finished the read through and every now and then something pops up in my brain so I write it down in a book I started taking everywhere. I’ve mapped out a good deal of the ending and middle now, which is awesome! I was getting so stuck on where I should be going next that I was missing a lot of awesome character-development points.

I’d still like to get Black & Red into a hard copy. I know I can do that through Amazon and CreateSpace but I haven’t had time to deal with the upload of the file etc. My laptop has bit the dust, hard. I can’t even use it unless I use an external keyboard which is painful. I might look into a cheapy little thing. I’d like an ultrabook or Surface, I think. But no money for that right now so it’s just a dream.

Been a bit sick lately; probably from stress, work, kids, weather-change etc. The husband and I are going to try and squirrel away some money to hire a babysitter for a couple hours or so. We haven’t had any ‘us’ time and we’re getting pretty worn out because of it. We don’t do much, but we’ll probably go for like an afternoon to troll the mall and eat at the food court. Maybe watch a movie. Babysitters cost money so we might not be able to do it until November and his work schedule changes a lot since he works part time so hopefully we can squeeze a date in before it gets too cold out.

It’s almost my birthday! The video game I want comes out after the actual day but I hope I get to get it. My husband gave me my present already since my birthday falls on a weekday this year.

One of these days I’ll be able to afford my cottage in the mountains of Jasper where I’ll sit writing all day and having a bonfire outside. If only things didn’t cost money! We do have a fire pit in our backyard but the previous owners were dicks so it probably isn’t up to code. Maybe we can fix it up for next year.

You’ll be pleased to see that I was working on some story-related brainstorming today during my lunch hour. Don’t try to read too closely as some, if not most, of what I wrote can be changed. There may be some spoilers so don’t ruin your read if you don’t want to!

On the plus side, I believe I’ve mapped out what I want to happen. I’ve been overly stuck on the middle-ish part of the book as I’ve passed 100 pages but can’t seem to keep the story going. This session really helped and allowed me to change a couple ideas I had and flesh out some finer points on what I’ve already written. I think I’ll start working on my book during my lunch time too. If my tablet is charged I will bring it tomorrow. I’ll need to remember to bring my outline notebook and transfer what I’ve written in this one to that one.

It’s coming along my dears! I am beginning to look out for an artist for the cover. The first one I asked my husband to do and it was quite easy to that on my own. It’ll be in an ebook format again but this time I’ll just go with Kindle Direct Publishing and forego Smashwords. I also need to work on getting Black & Red available in print. I should have quite a bit of spare time as my husband started school today and starts part-time work after school tomorrow. I’ll have to plan my evenings carefully for all of you.